Category Archives: Bay, Beach and Parks

The City’s Planning Department and local groups are working on future plans for Mission Bay Park. This is the 4th meeting in a series of Ad Hoc meetings held by the City’s De Anza Revitalization Plan project team**. This meeting will include discussion of the existing conditions and issues and constraints for natural resources and other environmental conditions.

**The City of San Diego Park Planning Section is responsible for the planning of park and recreational policies and standards consistent with the Recreational Element of the City’s General Plan (2008). The policies and standards define how to preserve, protect, acquire, develop, operate, maintain, and enhance public recreation opportunities and facilities throughout the City for all users. Recreational facilities include neighborhood and community park facilities, resource-based parks, and open space lands. De Anza Revitalization meetings and topic schedule: http://media.wix.com/ugd/f309e9_f3e5698c7aea49e3bc8ff467117ab162.pdf

A bike ride on the boardwalk from Mission Beach to Pacific Beach was held on January 30th to show support for renting locally and to protest some DecoBike locations. In particular, residents and businesses were protesting these locations:• Installed on the boardwalk • In front of or near local bike shops and businesses that also rent bikes.

A sizable crowd attending riding bikes provided by our local businesses. More to com…

Background: The first bike sharing location arrived in San Diego in January of last year. For over a year prior, representatives from the City and DecoBike worked with Mission Beach and Pacific Beach community groups on how to integrate a bike share program. There were many meetings to vet issues including the impact on local small businesses, safety, convenience, parking and traffic congestion along with the needs of Deco Bikes to ensure a successful business model for bike share.

The DecoBike company simply ignored a list of acceptable locations which had already been agreed to.

For the last two years, the PB Planning Group, the PB Business Improvement District (Discover PB) and the PB Town Council had been working with the Deco Bikes Corporation to agree upon locations for the bike corrals. They had identified and agreed upon a few locations, but at a meeting two weeks ago, Deco Bikes said they planned to put the bikes on the boardwalk. All PB groups opposed this plan as it would take away from established local businesses, block the stunning views, crowd the boardwalk and not benefit the community of PB at all. In spite of the opposition from every group in PB, Deco Bikes came last Friday, removed benches, and installed two bike corrals, over 80 feet on the west side of the boardwalk one block from each other, obstructing views of the ocean in between the pier and south to the life guard tower. There are also locations at the foot of Pacific Beach Drive, Thomas and Grand Avenue and more boardwalk stalls to come.

We are supportive of bikes, but the boardwalk locations are not convenient and crowd the boardwalk for visitors and residents. This Miami, Florida based corporation is taking up precious space on our boardwalk to rent out bikes to tourists. Pacific Beach already has many local business that provide rental bike service.

HOW YOU CAN HELP. A local grassroots group has multiple strategies to get the bikes removed and to keep more from being installed. There has been great press coverage over the last few days, but in spite of the vocal fury over the unexpected installations, the city has been unresponsive.

The good news is that from 2013 to 2014, crime went down about 2% overall in San Diego and our San Diego Police have been doing an outstanding job! Unfortunately, violent crime has increased in some areas.

Most of us feel safe in our community of Pacific Beach, and rightly so because our residential neighborhoods have very little violent crime. However, the same cannot be said of certain areas in our business district.

Violent crime in Pacific Beach increased 14% from 2013 to 2014. Total violent crimes went from 189 to 216, and rapes went from 10 to 18. Crime stats by community are available at ARJIS.org or click on Crime Data tables here: Crime San Diego 2014 and Crime San Diego 2013

Most of these violent crimes are alcohol-fueled assaults occurring in areas of our business district that are concentrated with bars and bar-like restaurants operating with business models reliant on maximum sales of alcohol and over-serving. This often results in over-intoxicated patrons, who go out into our community and commit crimes ranging from assault, rape and DUI to vandalism and negative impacts on residents’ quality of life.

In 2014, the top six communities for violent crime were East Village, Pacific Beach, North Park, Logan Heights, Gaslamp and Hillcrest – all but one have nightlife/entertainment-oriented business districts filled with bars and bar-like restaurants. Pacific Beach also carries the burden of having more DUIs and citations for public urination than any other community in San Diego.

The bottom line of the Police report will likely be that crime is going down. And we should applaud our police for doing such an excellent job. But our police have been given an impossible task because enforcement alone cannot solve the high crime in our business districts. We also need effective crime prevention measures. The City needs to adopt policies that will prevent the poor business practices that result in high crime, while maintaining safe, vibrant and healthy business districts.

Mayor Faulconer has said multiple times, “Safe neighborhoods are our first priority” and Police Chief Zimmerman has said recently, “We would rather prevent crime than pick up after it.” We need to ask our City Officials, “Why is crime going up in our community and what are we going to do to reverse it?” “Why are we allowing these high-crime business districts to drain police resources from other communities and squander taxpayer dollars?” “Why aren’t we taking measures to prevent the problem business practices that are causing the high crime?”

We need to demand that our City, not Sacramento/ABC, be in control of how and where late-night alcohol businesses operate. Our City needs to adopt the land-use policy solutions used successfully by scores of other California cities to prevent and reduce crime by regulating late-night alcohol businesses operations, such as:

An ordinance that grandfathers in existing alcohol businesses as long as they remain law-abiding operators;

An ordinance that requires new businesses that serve alcohol past 11pm to obtain a conditional use permit with conditions to prevent problematic operations that lead to crime;

What You Can Do
Attend Wednesday’s meeting — Tell your personal stories about how the crime and quality of life impacts have affected you. Express your outrage at the violent crime, DUI, public drunkenness and other negative impacts that result from the bad business operations. Demand the City adopt the above land-use policies to provide City control, not Sacramento/ABC control, over how alcohol-licensed businesses operate. (If you do not wish to speak, you can cede your time to others who need extra time.)

A Captain’s Advisory Board meeting was held on March 18th. Here are topics that were covered:

Property Crime is up. But you can do a lot to help yourself and your neighbors. Property crime is often due to easy entry through unlocked windows, doors and gates. What you can do: If a crime occurs in your neighborhood, report it to the police and post it on nextdoor.com so that other residents will be on the alert.

Pedestrian accidents are on the rise. “…of 55 pedestrian deaths in San Diego last year, 51 were the pedestrian’s fault.” As of last Friday, the Traffic Unit has started handing out citations for: Jaywalking, bicyclists not observing stop signs and breaking other traffic laws and distracted drivers and pedestrians, e.g. on cell phones or texting, etc. What you can do: Don’t be one of those people!

In April, a PISO Officer will be working in our area on weekends and nights. This officer will address illegal parking, e.g. enforcing the 72 hour rule and people staying overnight in RV’s. They will also respond to lower priority Police calls. What you can do: Report illegal parking in your neighborhood. Click here to find out how-> Illegal Parking.

Many, many bikes are stolen in PB. In an effort to stem the tide, the Police have acquired 2 bikes fitted with GPS tracking devices. These bikes will be used as decoys in areas where bicycles are frequently stolen.

We have a Beach Team of 8 to 9 Officers patrolling the beach and boardwalk. At night, they patrol the business district. Last year, they wrote over 1,000 citations. This past weekend, the division hired two officers on overtime and had them patrol the boardwalk for 6 hours. These officers wrote citations for alcohol, smoking, dogs and made themselves visible to the many “spring breakers” .

Officers now regularly conduct inspections of bar and restaurants to ensure all conditions of Entertainment Permits and Alcohol Licenses are being met. As a result, compliance with conditions has noticeably improved. Inspections are random and complaint driven. Police look for overcrowding and for adequate security.. They check for open windows and doors that may be contributing to a noise problems. What you can do: If you notice this type of problem, please call the SDPD-emergency # : 619 531-2000

Quality of Life Team: We are fortunate to have 2 outstanding Officers who address the transient problem in our community. They achieve the work of two Squads. These 2 officers help transients with transportation to a shelter. They also enforce illegal lodging and issue stay away orders. What you can do: If you see suspicious activity or groups of people that make you uncomfortable don’t just pass by, report it to the police non-emergency #, 619 531-2000.

On a Saturday night in March, a DUI checkpoint was conducted in the 2700 block of Grand Ave. between 11 p.m. Saturday and 3 a.m. Sunday. As a result, 14 drivers were not driving our city streets while drunk. Around 1,575 vehicles passed through the checkpoint. The checkpoint was funded by a grant through the California Office of Traffic Safety.

Here is a detailed review of what occurred leading up to the alcohol-free beach policy and what happened after the beaches became alcohol-free. We hope you will consider this a reminder of the great things community involvement can accomplish. We thank Scott Chipman for this thorough review. Continue reading →

Mission Bay Park is a great park – It can be even better! This area welcomes local San Diegans and visitors each day who enjoy the park’s facilities and the natural beauty of the surroundings. The Mission Bay Gateway project seeks to connect and enhance these facilities while also expanding and protecting the Mission Bay marshlands and bird sanctuaries. Bike Paths and parks will be extended and new amenities like pools, sports fields, and a restaurant will be added for the community and visitors to enjoy. The result will be an environmental, recreational, and educational destination at the heart of Mission Bay. Learn more at the website: Mission Bay Gateway

In May, the Plunge at Belmont Park was closed indefinitely. The Plunge building had design flaws that caused severe corrosion of key structural elements. The pool portion of the building was no longer safe to occupy. The following is a portion of an October 17th press release from “Save The Plunge”.

“…City staff members have assisted Mr. Krasne to facilitate his re-opening of The Plunge at Belmont Park. A contract to complete repairs – which will permit The Plunge to re-open on an interim basis – will be executed and implemented shortly. It is anticipated that The Plunge will be open and available to serve the community by the end of November, 2011. ”

On May 26, the historic Plunge at Belmont Park was closed indefinitely due to structural safety issues and a dispute over how to pay for the needed repairs.

The city owns the Plunge and Tom Lochtefeld is the leaseholder who has been maintaining and operating the Plunge and the Wavehouse for the past 11 years. Besides being a historic landmark and tourist attraction, the Plunge has special facilities for disabled persons, and has been a valuable resource for seniors, children and families, lap swimmers, water exercise classes, and youth swim lessons, teams and camps.

Over the years, Mr. Lochtefeld has continuously invested substantial amounts of money into the Plunge to keep it functioning. Recently, after his rent credits expired, Mr. Lochtefeld’s annual rent increased from $70,000 to nearly $500,000. Mr. Lochtefeld asked the city to extend his rent credits so that he can use that money to repair the Plunge. He says he can either pay the rent or pay to repair The Plunge, but he cannot do both. The City maintains that the full rent must be paid and has no plan for how to fund the needed repairs to the Plunge. The negotiations between the City and Mr. Lochtefeld appear to be at a stalemate.

What You Can Do To:

1) Find out more and Email your comments to city officials by clicking on the link below